fallout shelter
8
5.3
- noun
- /ˈfɔːlˌaʊt ˈʃɛltər/
- Archaic
:
refugio antinuclear
- During the Cold War, many families built a fallout shelter in their backyards to prepare for potential emergencies.
And in that Fallout Shelter, there are these documents that are from Leibowitz.
- And in that Fallout Shelter, there are these documents that are from Leibowitz.
Examples
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Proceed to the fallout shelter in a single-file line.
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In 1962, when the bomb was dropped on Los Angeles, my parents were in our fallout shelter.
Fiction book (1999) -
I heard your boy talking about a fallout shelter on some farm.
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That means more room for us in that fallout shelter, and more food.
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- Tucker and I are going down to the fallout shelter.
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If there will be a need to spend two weeks in a fallout shelter, we have packed our survival kit.
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This is a fallout shelter for VIPs.
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We see Calvin behind the house, measuring off the dimensions for a fallout shelter.
Fiction book (1999) -
In the hopes of surviving, she flees to her family farm in Kansas where an old fallout shelter is buried underground.
Blog text (18) -
A fallout shelter in your basement will give adequate shielding from radioactive fallout.
Synonyms
344
1.1
A building that gives temporary housing and protection for homeless people
28
3.4
A strong place often underground where people stay to be safe from bombs
2
4.4
A strong place, often underground, that protects people from bombs
A very strong room or building that protects people from bomb explosions
How Protective
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a shelter that protects from radioactive fallout' is directly and compositionally derived from 'fallout' (radioactive particles deposited after blasts) + 'shelter' (a protective structure), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the compound. This straightforward noun–noun compounding is a common, cross-linguistic pattern and does not require idiomatic knowledge.
Etymology
The noun fallout shelter comes from a simple picture: fallout is the radioactive dust that falls after a nuclear explosion, and a shelter is a safe place to hide. That's why a fallout shelter means a room or underground space built to keep people safe from that radioactive dust.